in message
Ok, I just successfully sent one to myself that was a 770kp file. Is
there a
way to determine what size is the limit (other than just sending
trials of
various size files)? So if I need to send a larger file, I should try
zipping into a .zip file?
You can call your own ISP or whomever is your e-mail provider to ask
them what is the maximum size of an e-mail that you can send, or you
could read their web help pages. You won't know what is the maximum
message size restriction for recipients. Keep the total size (what you
actually send) to under 10MB as most recipients have this as a maximum
message size. If you just write an e-mail, it would be pretty difficult
to be so verbose as to eat up 10MB in text. If you compose in HTML, you
will slightly more than double the size of your e-mail because there
will be a MIME part for the HTML encoded copy and another MIME part for
a plain-text version of your message but, still, it would be pretty hard
to write up a 5MB e-mail. Most e-mails that you hand write will be
under 50KB in size.
It is when you add attachments, especially binary attachments (of which
..pdf is one) that you can exceed the maximum message size. E-mail was
NOT designed to be a file transfer protocol (FTP). Using a zip utility
may not provide much reduction in the size of a binary file. It may, in
fact, create a .zip file that is slightly larger than the original file.
If the binary file is not compressible, you end up adding the .zip
wrapper around the non-compressed file. For example, JPEG files are
already compressed so zipping them won't reduce them. I haven't tried
compressing .pdf files to see how much they compress but then that would
depend on whether the content of the .pdf was an image or text. If you
are going to attach non-text files, figure on a maximum file size of
less than half of whatever is your sending limit for message size or
half of a 10MB limit that is typical of many recipients (some might be
even smaller), whichever is smaller.
Also, when you send large e-mails, you can screw over the recipient.
What if they don't need or want to see the attached huge file? You end
up making them waste their disk quota on a message containing an
attachment they don't want. You could push their disk quota to the max
which means their mail server cannot add any more messages into their
mailbox so the later e-mails get rejected and the recipient ends up not
getting e-mails that they really do want. You could be viewed as an
abusive sender because of screwing over a recipient's mailbox. They
also have to waste the bandwidth and time to download a huge e-mail
where they may only want your comments and not the attachment, along
with consuming disk space on their own local host, possibly exceeding
the maximum size for their message store, causing timeouts while their
anti-virus program interrogates your huge e-mail, and other problems.
Do NOT send huge e-mails.
Most ISPs give you disk space to use as a personal web site, so upload
your file to your web space and provide a link to it in your e-mail. My
ISP gives me 25MB per account for personal web space, I can have up to 7
accounts with each providing 25MB of online storage, so I could put a
175MB file up in my web space (by using a file splitter which would
nuisance the recipient by having to join the files so I'd probably stay
under the 25MB maximum quota per account or use a different online
storage mechanism). Google search for online storage services and put
your file there and use a link to it in your e-mail. Just beware that
some of them require the recipient to establish an account at the same
service since only members can share files and this can be a nuisance to
your recipient, especially since they end up having to create an account
just to get your file which means they may be reluctant and decide not
to bother with getting your file. You can use online services that will
store your file and send a message to the recipient with the link; for
example:
http://www.driveway.com/ ( 500MB max file size)
http://www.sendspace.com/ ( 300MB max file size)
http://www.transferbigfiles.com/ (1000MB max file size)
http://www.yousendit.com ( 100MB max file size)
There are similar e-mail file services but most have smaller limits to
the file size. A Google search would find many of them:
http://www.google.com/search?q=+send++large++files++email
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=+"online+storage"
(add "+free" to the search if you don't want to pay for the service)
Just remember that you are putting files online where anyone can
download them, including the service that you use to store the file. If
they contain sensitive information, encrypt them. Even if they claim to
encrypt your files when saved on their service, they could look at them
so encrypt them yourself before saving them there. If you don't trust
the security of the content of the file to anyone that can download it,
you should also not trust the service where you put the file.
